‘We will be tremendously successful’

President Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un have come together for a momentous summit that could determine historic peace or raise the spectre of a growing nuclear threat, with Trump pledging that "working together we will get it taken care of".

In a meeting that seemed unthinkable just months ago, the leaders met at a Singapore island resort, shaking hands warmly in front of a row of alternating US and North Korean flags. They then moved into a roughly 45-minute one-on-one meeting, joined only by their interpreters, before including their advisers.

For all the upbeat talk, it remained to be seen what, if any, concrete results the sit-down would produce.

"We are going to have a great discussion and I think tremendous success. We will be tremendously successful," Trump said before their private session.

Kim said through an interpreter: "It wasn't easy for us to come here. There was a past that grabbed our ankles and wrong prejudices and practices that at times covered our eyes and ears. We overcame all that and we are here now."

In the run-up to the meeting, Trump had predicted the two men might strike a nuclear deal or forge a formal end to the Korean War in the course of a single meeting or over several days. But on the eve of the summit, the White House unexpectedly announced Trump would depart Singapore by Tuesday evening (local time), raising questions about whether his aspirations for an ambitious outcome had been scaled back.

The meeting was the first between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader.

Critics of the summit leapt at the handshake and the moonlight stroll Kim took Monday night along the glittering Singapore waterfront, saying it was further evidence that Trump was helping legitimise Kim on the world stage as an equal of the US president. Kim has been accused of horrific rights abuses against his people. During his stroll, crowds yelled out Kim's name and jostled to take pictures, and the North Korean leader posed for a selfie with Singapore officials.

Trump responded to that criticism Tuesday on Twitter, saying: "The fact that I am having a meeting is a major loss for the US, say the haters & losers." But he added "our hostages" are back home and testing, research and launches have stopped.

Trump also tweeted: "Meetings between staffs and representatives are going well and quickly ... but in the end, that doesn't matter. We will all know soon whether or not a real deal, unlike those of the past, can happen!"

Addressing reporters on Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sought to keep expectations in check, saying: "We are hopeful this summit will have set the conditions for future successful talks."

The summit capped a dizzying few days of foreign policy activity for Trump, who shocked US allies over the weekend by using a meeting in Canada of the Group of Seven industrialised economies to alienate America's closest friends in the West. Lashing out over trade practices, Trump lobbed insults at his G-7 host, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trump left that summit early and, as he flew to Singapore, tweeted that he was yanking the US out of the group's traditional closing statement.

The two leaders shake hands as the summit begins. Photo: AP

As for Singapore, the White House said Trump was leaving early because negotiations had moved "more quickly than expected," but gave no details about any possible progress in preliminary talks. On the day before the meeting, weeks of preparation appeared to pick up in pace, with US and North Korean officials meeting throughout Monday at a Singapore hotel.

The President planned to stop in Guam and Hawaii on the way back to Washington.

Trump spoke only briefly in public on Monday, forecasting a "nice" outcome. Kim spent the day mostly out of view — until he embarked on the late-night sightseeing tour of Singapore, including the Flower Dome at Gardens by the Bay, billed as the world's biggest glass greenhouse.

As Trump and Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong sat down for a working lunch at the Istana house, the President sounded optimistic, telling Lee, "We've got a very interesting meeting in particular tomorrow, and I think things can work out very nicely."

It was a striking about-face from less than a year ago, when Trump was threatening "fire and fury" against Kim, who in turn scorned the American president as a "mentally deranged US dotard." As it happens, the North Korean and the American share a tendency to act unpredictably on the world stage.

Beyond the impact on both leaders' political fortunes, the summit could shape the fate of countless people — the citizens of impoverished North Korea, the tens of millions living in the shadow of the North's nuclear threat, and millions more worldwide. Or, it could amount to little more than a much-photographed handshake.

US and North Korean officials huddled throughout Monday at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, outlining specific goals for what the leaders should try to accomplish and multiple scenarios for resolving key issues, a senior US official said, adding that the meetings were also an ice breaker of sorts, allowing the teams to get better acquainted after decades of minimal contact between their nations.

Trump's early exit will be his second from a summit in just a few days.

As he sought to build a bridge with Kim, he was smashing longtime alliances with Western allies with his abrasive performance at the G-7. After his premature departure from Quebec, he continued to tweet angrily at Trudeau from Singapore, saying Monday, "Fair Trade is now to be called Fool Trade if it is not Reciprocal."

Trump advisers cast his actions as a show of strength before the Kim meeting.

Alluding to the North's concerns that giving up its nuclear weapons could surrender its primary deterrent to forced regime change, Pompeo told reporters that the US was prepared to take action to provide North Korea with "sufficient certainty" that denuclearisation "is not something that ends badly for them".

He would not say whether that included the possibility of withdrawing US troops from the Korean Peninsula, but said the context of the discussions was "radically different than ever before".

"I can only say this," Pompeo said. "We are prepared to take what will be security assurances that are different, unique, than America's been willing to provide previously."

The North has faced crippling diplomatic and economic sanctions as it has advanced development of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Pompeo held firm to Trump's position that sanctions will remain in place until North Korea denuclearises — and said they would even increase if diplomatic discussions did not progress positively.

Experts believe the North is close to being able to target the entire US mainland with its nuclear-armed missiles, and while there's deep skepticism that Kim will quickly give up those hard-won nukes, there's also some hope that diplomacy can replace the animosity between the US and the North.

While advisers say Trump has been reviewing briefing materials, the President insists his gut instincts will matter most when he gets in the room with Kim. He told reporters he thinks he will know almost immediately whether a deal can be made, saying: "I will know, just my touch, my feel. That's what I do."

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